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The thing I love best about Elkins is the incredible level of volunteerism our city engenders and enjoys.
If you drove down Randolph Avenue on a Saturday before the pandemic, you would have seen signs for BBQ chicken, church pancakes, Vidalia onions -- or just about anything else -- for sale to help fund this and that service organization. From the Ramp Festival in April through the Mountain State Forest Festival in October local volunteers were visible all over town.
Over the last 14 years we have been fortunate to have many volunteers offer their services at Kump Education Center to clean house, work in the gardens, paint the fence, clear the barn, and help lead special fundraising events. Members of AmeriCorps, Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR), Emma Scott Garden Club (ESGC), Davis & Elkins College faculty and students have all stepped up to help us with the task of making Mary G. Kump's gift to the City of Elkins a viable educational facility.
Even the pandemic has not drained the volunteer energy from groups like ESGC with their great and growing membership. ESGC member Bobby Trimboli has led the Our Town movement that has been responsible for putting up seasonal decorations downtown. Also from ESGC, Katy McClain and the Friends of Trees have been working on planting trees and tending gardens all over town. The fact that this beautification work is outside makes it safer for volunteers and more visible for the public to see.
Few people know how agonizing the pandemic has been for all the teachers who have consistently looked out for the needs of their students. Teachers and other volunteers helped to fix meals for hungry children during the school shutdown periods. They filled backpacks with food and gave coats to children who were cold. When the schools reopened and Chromebooks became available, teachers spent hours trying to help rural kids move into the digital age. Teachers are the volunteers who shape a kinder democracy.
Davis Memorial Hospital and Davis & Elkins College were given to the Elkins community by wealthy benefactors, but the rich donors did not establish endowments to keep their institutions running. Nevertheless, these amazing local facilities have local board members and dedicated volunteers who have given both time and money to maintain and manage these fine facilities.
Now volunteers have given their time to reopen exhibitions at the Arts Center and keep exercise classes moving for the YMCA. Organizations like the United Way and Snowshoe Foundation depend heavily on volunteer fundraisers. Unpaid people offer tax preparation and other services at the Senior Center and Veterans of Foreign Wars to serve the community.
Beginning in October 1930 the Mountain State Forest Festival was one of the most amazing volunteer generated events in this country. The Forest Festival Director and most of those who worked on the event were volunteers. Many of the food vendors and most exhibitors were unpaid and their parents and teachers who brought marching bands and made floats look fabulous. I hope the Forest Festival will reinvent itself with a renewed interest in the future of the Monongahela Forest.
There is nothing ordinary about the way this town has functioned for the last 133 years. Our volunteers have always been phenomenal.